Recently, input devices utilizing touch sensors, such as track pads, touch screens and the like, have become increasingly popular. In portable computing devices such as laptop computers, the input devices are commonly track pads (also known as touch pads). With a track pad, the movement of an input pointer (i.e., cursor) usually corresponds to the relative movements of the user's finger (or stylus) as the finger is moved along a surface of the track pad.
In the case of hand-held personal digital assistants (PDA) or mobile devices, the input devices tend to utilize touch-sensitive display screens. When using a touch screen, a user can make a selection on the display screen by pointing directly to objects on the screen using a stylus or finger. Touch screens can include a touch sensor panel, which can be a clear panel with a touch-sensitive surface, and a display device such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) that can be positioned partially or fully behind the panel, or integrated with the panel, so that the touch-sensitive surface can cover at least a portion of the viewable area of the display device. Touch screens can allow a user to perform various functions by touching the touch sensor panel using a finger, stylus or other object at a location often dictated by a user interface (UI) being displayed by the display device. In general, touch screens can recognize a touch event and the position of the touch event on the touch sensor panel, and the computing system can then interpret the touch event in accordance with the display appearing at the time of the touch event, and thereafter can perform one or more actions based on the touch event.
Depending on design specifications, touch sensor panels can be formed in a variety of shapes and curvatures. However, in the case of a touch screen, for example, a transparent substrate (e.g., glass) can include a thin transparent patterned film, for example, laminated (or otherwise deposited or formed) thereon. Because of the desired thinness of the substrate and thin film, difficulties can occur during fabrication due to the risk of damaging components of the touch sensor panel. For example, conventional lamination processes are adequate for laminating a substantially flat/planar substrate to a substantially flat/planar material. However, conventional techniques may not be useable when a flexible glass substrate is to be laminated to a curved cover surface, for example, due to the risk of damaging the substrate and/or cover surface.